Rice Growth: An Integral Part of Rice Production

The foremost step for a thriving harvest is to create a crop calendar. It provides a solid framework for all the farming activities and allows for better planning of subsequent procedures and production cost. From land preparation to storage, a crop calendar provides a definite schedule for rice production.

Formulating a crop calendar, choosing the variety of seeds and preparing the land are all integral parts of pre-planting. However, in this post, we’d be discussing the growth stage. The growth stage involves a number of processes from planting rice to controlling weeds, pests and diseases, all of which are pivotal for a thriving harvest.

1. Planting Rice

As such, there are two methods of seed plantation; direct seeding and transplanting. Transplanting involves raising the seedlings in a seedbed prior to plantation in the field, while in direct seeding, seedlings are planted directly in the field.

While choosing the right plantation method, a number of factors are in play; ecosystem, available labour, soil type, planting season, etc.

2. Water Management

Perhaps you already know that rice is extremely sensitive to lack of water. Thus it becomes pivotal to implement effective management practices for maximum yield. As a general rule, rice is grown in a land which is continuously flooded for about 10 days prior to the harvest. Flooding the land is an integral way to prepare for sowing and controlling weeds, and ensures that there’s sufficient water.

In Asia, a typical amount of 1500 mm of water is required for irrigation. Just so you know, irrigated rice receives about 40% of the total irrigated water; that’s about 25% of this world’s freshwater resources.

For effective water management, one should:

- Construct field channels

- Land preparation for minimal water shortage

- Leveling the field

- Repairing cracks and holes in the fields

3. Soil Fertility

Another important factor for plant’s healthy growth and sustenance is soil fertility. Therefore it is essential that you apply nutrients to the crop for maximum soil fertility. Owing to the nutritional imbalance in the fields, a number of crop-related problems can arise.

For optimum soil fertility, establish an achievable yield target, regulate the fertilizer use and regularly supply optimum amounts of nutrition.

4. Controlling Weed

Utilize the share of sunlight, water and nutrition meant for rice, weeds effectively decrease yields, elevate production costs, and subsequently reduce product quality. Yield loss is worst during the initial 30 days of sowing. Weed control is therefore important to prevent yield and production losses, both during land preparation and early growth.

5. Controlling Pests and Diseases

As estimated, farmers lose about 35% of their yearly yield to crop diseases and pests. To limit these inhibitors, one should:

- Clean the field between seasons

- Use pest resistant, clean seed varieties

- Encourage natural pest inhibitors and don’t over apply fertilizers

- Don’t use fertilizers within the first month of sowing

Article Source : EzineArticles 

Rice Farming: Post Production, Harvesting And Drying

In many a developing country, 25 to 50% of the total grain value is lost between the harvest and consumption, mainly due to poor storage techniques, farm level wastage, and processing. This leads to lower incomes for farmers and higher prices for buyers. Further, there's a pressure on farmers to increase the production levels to attain higher rice yields and they end up using more land and fertilizers causing mass damage to the natural resources. This article aims at teaching you how to minimize grain losses and maintain rice quality for longer storage periods.

Step 1: Post production management

Post production management is all about how to handle the rice; from the time it's harvested to the time it's sold. Various processes such as cutting, hauling, cleaning and marketing the rice, etc. are involved. It's particularly important because it prevents both qualitative and quantitative loss and with a poor post production management, you're prone to losing as much as 50% of your total yield.

Step 2: Harvesting

This is simply a process of collecting the mature crop from the field; in our case, rice. Harvesting begins with cutting the crop and ends after it's been prepared to dry. It involves:

- Cutting

- Field drying

- Hauling

- Piling

- Threshing

- Cleaning

- Packing (to send it further for drying)

Harvesting at the correct time ensures that you get the maximum yield, diminishing quality degeneration. There are, however, certain physical losses one has to face during the harvesting operations. These are loosely based on the operations and machinery used during harvesting. These losses:

- Occur during cutting

- Occur during threshing and

- Occur during grain handlings

To minimize, it's important that you measure losses at each operation of harvesting and work upon it.

Step 3: Drying

The most critical operation once through the harvest, drying reduces the grain's moisture content to a safe level ideal for storing it for longer durations. Moisture laden grain is prone to discolouration, development of molds and pest infestation. It also reduces the seed's rate of germination, thus diminishing the overall grain quality. It happens when you:

- Wait too long before you begin drying

- Don't dry it long enough, whatever be your purpose

- Wrong techniques

Ideally, you should begin drying within 24 hours after the harvest. The grains should be dried down to different Moisture Content (MC) for different purposes.

- 14% or less MC for storing up to a few months

- 13% or less MC to store for 8 to 12 months

- 9% or less for storing more than a year

Drying techniques:

- Traditional systems: Sun drying, field drying and stacking

- Mechanical systems: Heated air drying, low temperature drying, solar drying and grain cooling

Nextech Grain Processing and Engineering is a rice mill plant consultant based in Delhi, India providing complete solutions for rice mill plant layouts, designing, detailed engineering and project coordination. Visit their website.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com